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Greylock Partners CERTIFIED

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FIRM OVERVIEW: Medium Private VC founded in 1965 based out of San Mateo, USA (US West)

FIRM DESCRIPTION: Greylock Partners is a private venture capital firm, founded in 1965, with committed capital of over $2 billion under management. Today, Greylock operates out of offices in the Bay Area, Boston and Israel. For over 43 years we have provided equity capital and support to over 300 growth companies, many of which have gone on to become leaders in their respective industries. Of these companies, over 125 have become publicly held, while over 100 others have merged successfully with other leading companies.
Greylock makes new company investments in category-leading companies across all stages � from seed and early-stage rounds to later-stage and follow-on rounds. In most cases we are active board members and often play the role of lead director. We are active across all areas of technology including the following:
� Consumer and Services: financial, healthcare, Internet, mobile, retail, systems integration
� Enterprise Infrastructure � compute/data center, management, networking, security, storage
� Enterprise Software � applications, software as a service (SaaS)
� Semiconductor: EDA, networking, wireless
The Greylock approach uniquely puts the entrepreneur first, with Greylock working as an "invited guest" in a highly supportive yet consultative way to help entrepreneurs build market-leading companies.

Posted by
John Payne
on 2011-10-05

PUBLIC:

Was introduced to John Lilly at Greylock and had a good conversation with him about our business. He was thoughtful, tried to be helpful and gave us a quick no. When I asked him for color on his response he was quick to reply even though wildly busy and gave useful feedback on both our deal's fit (or lack therof) with Greylock and the current state of the market as it affected us independent of the specifics of our deal.

Generally I thought he was helpful and professional and I would talk to him again in a heartbeat.

Posted by
Steve Kirsch
on 2011-07-08

At Reid Hoffman's recommendation, I pitched John Lilly on June 8, 2011 at Greylock on a new identity management startup, OneID. We met for 45 minutes.

I had previously talked to John when he was President of Mozilla.org, but that was only a brief conversation.

John was fully engaged, understood the pitch and the significance, and quickly jumped to the key issue: adoption. I agree. He saw it immediately.

He's also the only VC I've pitched that knew what federated identity is (and other buzzwords that only people deep in my space would know). So he understands the technology.

He said he'd get back to me on Monday and he did. They turned us down and he explained why.

Despite the turn down, he's kept in touch and has been helpful in identifying some top technical talent and to making introductions at some large companies I wanted to contact but wouldn't otherwise be able to meet with.

All in all, I couldn't have been happier. Of the people I've pitched, he's been by far the most helpful.

Posted by
mcolli20
on 2008-07-21

PUBLIC:

I've met now twice with Bill K. who has been very professional, insightful and above board. Though we are a little unclear as to where they stand, my partner and I have nothing but the highest regards for what our experience has been thus far.

I've heard this a few times that Bill Helman has all the power and that both Bills (Bill Kaiser is the other) need to be on Board if you want your deal done. I friend of mine was spend a consider about of time with another partner only to have deal nixed at end. Have other had similar experience"

Greylock is by far the best group of venture professionals that I have had the privledge of interacting with. They are extremely well connected and do not hesitate to use their connections to help out.

They move fast when they see something they want and they are extremely fair in negotiations. I would recommend Greylock to anyone who has the opportunity to do a deal with them!

I pitched Charles Chi a few years ago for our Series A, and it was a very good experience as he immediately concluded that it wasn't a good fit and very politely told us why. We didn't waste anyone's time futher.

I stay in touch with Charles from time to time and always find that he is friendly and direct. Its so unusual that I thought I should write up my experience here.

Posted by
Deans
on 2007-09-25

PUBLIC:

Greylock funded one of the first companies that I worked for & I met David Strohm through that association. I kept in touch with him through the years and have always been impressed. He's confident, but not arrogant & he's a real pleasure to deal with.

Posted by
Anonymouos
on 2007-09-13

PUBLIC:

I have heard from folks who have worked with him that he has an ego the size of a football stadium, but that "you know where you stand". I know a few LP's and apparently he's never had the kind of grand slam many of his contemporaries have which might explain the ego issues.

The general word on the street is that the west coast is really dominating the firm and the few deals being done out of the Boston office are late stage deals.

Posted by
RuralRoute6
on 2007-08-19

PUBLIC:

Principals and Associates offered very little if any insights and were unable to grasp simple online advertising concepts. Of all the pitches, they offered the least strategic insights and questions. Good people but just going through the motions of "looking at every deal". Mistake was to assume they would bring in Partners.

Posted by
beyondfunded
on 2007-08-17

PUBLIC:

I must second all other comments. I met with Bill Kaiser, Eve Phillips and a few associates and while they all were very polite, they were also very arrogant and very aggressive. Also, you could feel the internal tension (my conversation with them always had people from different offices cutting each other off and not agreeing with each other).

Twice is enough, and the same things keep happening there after the people change. They'll change their minds and blame the other partners, they'll make decisions they don't really like then look for someone else to blame. They tolerate bad management for too long and then - wham! - they change everything. All ego, no help, no partnership. It's just not worth it.